


As the World Falls Down

by meteorfest



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Labyrinth Fusion, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-16
Updated: 2017-07-16
Packaged: 2018-12-02 19:51:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11516256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meteorfest/pseuds/meteorfest
Summary: Glitch made a wish that the Goblin King granted and now he has to solve the Labyrinth in thirteen hours if he wants to leave. Skids doesn't want to let him go.This is the Labyrinth AU that was spawned from a shitpost I made on tumblr via my Skids blog.





	As the World Falls Down

**Author's Note:**

> I do not have to justify myself. All you need to know is I made a joke about Skids re-enacting Labyrinth in the vents with himself as the Goblin King and then [I made a photoset](https://theoreticiian.tumblr.com/post/162718617515/more-of-this-skids-the-goblin-king-nonsense-that) and lost my mind.

_ “You have thirteen hours in which to solve the labyrinth _ .” That was the challenge that Skids had set for the other mech.  _ “If you reach my castle within the time limit, I’ll send you home.” _

Glitch wandered, twisting and turning around corners, through tunnels, and over bridges as he navigated through the Labyrinth that spread for miles before the castle. Skids was sprawled over his throne, watching through the crystal balls spinning between his fingers, golden optics fixed on the bright frame of the mech he’d brought to his kingdom. It was a game, really; something to alleviate the King’s boredom. Should Glitch successfully get through the Labyrinth, Skids would follow through on his word and send the other mech back to the dull, mortal realm.

Should he fail, Skids would keep him, making him a permanent resident of the Goblin Kingdom.

Thirteen hours was the time he’d given him and four had already passed. Glitch was clever, resourceful, and had already gotten far along in the journey towards the castle.

Too far along.

Skids didn’t like this. He’d been watching Glitch, learning about him, finding him more and more interesting as days went by. The mech was an outcast in his world, forced through a cruel, humiliating mutilation that left him with a single optic and claws for hands. Mocked and belittled, Glitch found solace through literature and poetry, the same stories that gave Skids’ realm substance.

Skids realized, not too long ago, that he felt a desire for Glitch that he could not fulfill when their realms kept them apart. So he’d waited for a chance and, when Glitch cried out a wish to escape the suffering in his world, Skids had magicked him to his kingdom at last.

And now, he didn’t want to let Glitch go.

He needed to stall him.

* * * * *

He waited in the tunnels of the Labyrinth, hearing the thrumming bass voices of his False Alarms echoing through the air as they tried to steer Glitch off-course. Skids knew that it would take much more than a few disembodied heads to deter Glitch - he was far too intelligent for that, too well-read. 

No, this would have to be done by Skids himself.

A single crystal ball rolled down past Glitch’s pedes, glinting in the light from the torches of the tunnel and catching the mech’s attention. Glitch followed it for a few steps until it flew from the ground into the battered cup in the hands of a beggar wrapped in layers of cloth. The beggar’s face was hidden under a hood created by the slope of the cloth over his head. Tilting his head, the beggar turned his attention to Glitch.

“What’ve we here?” the beggar asked.

Glitch’s optic narrowed slightly in suspicion, but he started forward again regardless. “Nothing. Just passing through.”

The beggar laughed and stood, one hand reaching for his hood. Pulling it back, the magical disguise Skids had used to hide himself fell away - elegant silver and jewel chains draped over meticulously shined blue and red metal in the place of ragged cloth that had hidden his shape. Skids faced Glitch in the tunnel, amused smile on his lips as Glitch turned towards him.

“Nothing?” Skids asked. “ _ Nothing _ ? Why, Glitch, I’m wounded.” 

He stepped forward, backing Glitch against the wall. Glitch, to his credit, didn’t shake or cower, but stood his ground even as Skids leaned in, face close to Glitch’s. “Tell me, Glitch, how are you enjoying my Labyrinth?”

Glitch gave a non-committal shrug, his single optic looking directly back at Skids. “Piece of cake.”

Skids smiled. Exactly the response he’d been expecting from the mech who was making quick work of the elaborate Labyrinth. Oh, he was sure Glitch wasn’t intimidated by the challenges that waited throughout the twisting walls. He had an air of confidence about him here in the Labyrinth that Skids had only seen glimpses of before, when he’d watched Glitch in the mortal realm through the crystal balls. It just made Skids want to keep Glitch there even more.

“Then what do you say to upping the stakes?” Skids pulled away from Glitch, stepping to the side and magicking up a clock. With a twist of his wrist, he cast a small spell, making the hands of the clock spin round and round until he cut the remaining nine hours to three. 

Glitch reacted immediately. “That’s not fair!”

“I wonder,” Skids mused as he passed by Glitch, “what exactly your basis for comparison is here. I am the Master of this Kingdom. Fair is what I make it to be.”

“Then how are you better than the Functionists that did  _ this _ to me?” Glitch asked, gesturing to his mutilated face with one claw. “That’s the same argument they made - they’re in charge, they make the rules, the world is what  _ they  _ make it to be!”

_ That _ certainly caught Skids off-guard. For all he’d watched Glitch, he’d never known the story behind the mutilation, only the consequential ostracization that Glitch suffered for it. He’d brought the mech into his realm in response to a wish, thinking he was granting a favor, and then toyed with him - sending him through the Labyrinth, controlling it all from his castle. He’d set the rules.

Rules that he could not undo.

Rules that dictated Glitch’s fate.

How  _ was _ he any better than the Functionists that Glitch had wished to escape in the first place?

Skids pulled his lips into a firm line. Glitch had a point and now he was angry with Skids - justifiably so. At this point, however, there wasn’t anything to be done. Skids had set the rules and he could not undo what he’d already done. There were drawbacks to magic and, after turning the clock, he could not turn it back again. He’d selfishly cut Glitch’s time in an attempt to rig the game.

He could not give back that time.

But he could offer an amendment. Bringing forth the crystal ball, Skids imbued it with magic and swirled it between his fingers as he turned back to Glitch. “Fair is fair. I’ve cut your time in the Labyrinth. I will also cut your path.”

Turning back to the stretching blackness of the tunnel, Skids swung back his arm and threw the crystal ball. It shattered in the air and cut through the tunnel, revealing the world outside and a shortcut to another part of the Labyrinth. It was nowhere near the castle - he wasn’t going to make it that easy for Glitch; only enough to make up for the time he’d stolen. 

“You have three hours remaining to reach my castle,” Skids told Glitch. He stepped aside, gesturing for the mech to take the tunnel. “I cannot change the rules, for they’ve already been set in stone. When the clock strikes midnight, you will either be returned home or remain here. I put your fate in your hands, Glitch. Complete the Labyrinth or not. It’s up to you.”

* * * * *

Skids didn’t interfere after that. Not  _ personally _ , at any rate; the Labyrinth has its own tricks and traps, but he neither hindered nor helped when Glitch came across them. Glitch’s anger with his meddling had struck at the King’s spark and he chose to back off, letting Glitch take his fate into his own hands.

And Glitch was storming his way through the Labyrinth like a fire consuming the woods.

Skids was thoroughly impressed and even a little apprehensive, for this forceful, angry side of Glitch was one that he had never seen in all the time that he had watched the mech through the windows between their worlds. He knew that Glitch was capable of anger and contempt, having seen glimpses of it when the mech cursed the claws and expression-less facsimile of a face he was subjected to through the empurata forced on him, but Skids had never seen this degree of it.

He had sparked the flame that burned through his Labyrinth, pushing his own agenda ahead of Glitch’s free will.

Looking to the clock, Skids noted the time. An hour had passed since he’d dropped Glitch’s limit to a remaining three and Glitch had made a startling amount of progress. He had reached the wood surrounding the walled Goblin City. It would not be long before he reached Skids’ castle and the challenge would be complete.

Skids was running out of time.

* * * * *

_ There’s such a fooled heart - beatin’ so fast _ _  
_ _ In search of new dreams... _

Masks and crystals, glistening armor and swirling silks, the kind of shining stuff long since lost to Cybertron, surrounded them as music played over laughs and the clink of glasses filled with the most refined of energon wines. Guests danced in the hall of the Goblin King, a slow waltz to Golden Age melodies forgotten to so many. It was a party of legend and dream, folk tale and wishful imagination, a scene described only in fantasy and never attended by anyone but the most elite.

Glitch made his way through the crowd of dancers, an expression of awed wonder on his face as he took in the sights. Over his polished and refreshed gold and red frame draped a white fabric with a soft texture the likes of which he had never seen, sheer and so light that it hardly felt he wore it all. It flowed around him as he moved past guest after guest, searching, seeking...

_ A love that will last - within your heart… _

He could hear the gentle tinkling of delicate jewelry circling his helm, could feel a soft bump of a jewel against the crest of his helm. Intricate thin gold chains hung over his frame, accentuating the cloth he couldn’t name. It should have felt wrong - he was not the kind of mech who should ever wear this kind of high-class drapery.

But in this dream, for surely that was what this was, nothing felt wrong.

The guests twirling around him began to pull away, easing Glitch’s path as he made his way through the crowded hall. Soft, polite applause sounded as he passed and Glitch looked up.

Before him stood the Goblin King in all his splendor - bedecked in silver chains from which red stones dropped and the same kind of cloud soft cloth that Glitch wore, though black to Glitch’s white. On his face, the King wore a burnished silver mask of a devilish character, much more like the goblins of his kingdom than the handsome face Glitch knew was underneath. A smile crossed the King’s lips as he pulled away the mask and reached one hand out towards Glitch, who curled his claws around the offered hand. 

The King wrapped his arm around Glitch’s waist and pulled him close, leading him into the waltz as the crowd took it up again. The dance was slow, the music around them gentle, with a smooth baritone singing to the melody - a song of falling in love as the world falls down and Glitch felt the song in his spark as his gaze met the King’s. 

_ I'll place the moon - Within your heart... _

The other guests fell away from his attention until it felt it was only Glitch and the King, circling, swaying, spinning to the music. Glitch couldn’t bring himself to look away from the King, his mind in a haze. It had to be a dream, this dance, the King - the way the King was looking at him, with softly-lit golden optics and the barest smile on his lips, as though he were looking at a loved one. It couldn’t be real. Glitch was never allowed to be so close to anyone, no one would ever look at him like that, not when they were all so repulsed by his mutilated face and hands.

“Is...Is this another one of your tricks?” Glitch asked, breaking the silence between them and dropping his gaze at last as his claws gripped awkwardly at the King’s hand.

“It’s just a party,” the King replied. “To celebrate your visit to my Kingdom. I’ve wanted to meet you for some time and I wanted your visit to be memorable. It’s not often that I find someone so intriguing.”

“Intriguing,” Glitch repeated, his tone flat. He turned his head away from the King. “That’s one way to put it. Odd. Disturbing. Off-setting.”

Glitch had heard so many things thrown his way, cruel, disgusted, shameful tones echoing from passerby as he tried to just do his job, menial as it was. Ever since the Functionists had destroyed him, all it had been was pity, mockery, and flippant disregard for who he had been before. He’d lost the job he’d been forged for and had been forced to find something lower in the caste. Empurata had ruined his life.

_ As the pain sweeps through, makes no sense for you _

“That’s not what I see when I look at you,” the King told him. 

He pulled his hand from Glitch’s waist and brought it up to brush against the plate over his face. Glitch froze at the touch and their dance stopped. Neither of them appeared to mind the pause, Glitch and the King seeming to be the only ones in the world at that moment. Glitch’s spark pulsed in his chest, frame shaking slightly in apprehension - no one had touched him with such gentleness since the empurata and he was half-afraid that if he dared move, the touch would turn violent.

But it didn’t and the King only smiled softly at him. That dream-like feeling that Glitch had felt surrounding him the moment he entered the hall overtook him again. He still wasn’t sure what he was doing here, how he’d gotten there, or why the Goblin King seemed to have optics only for him when there were so many other guests, but in this moment, Glitch couldn’t think of any reason why anything that wasn’t the two of them could matter.

_ Every thrill is gone, wasn’t too much fun at all _ _  
_ _ But I’ll be there for you _

The King returned his hand to Glitch’s waist and pulled him close again, once more taking up the dance. Glitch let go of the tension he felt and leaned in towards the King, his helm falling to rest on his shoulder as they swayed together to the music. 

_ As the world falls down… _

Unseen by either of them, a clock ticked away the minutes...


End file.
